Patry’s defection exposes NDP’s Achilles heel

The call had all the finesse of a knife sliding between shoulder blades.

Three minutes before he walked into a press conference with Bloc Québécois Daniel Paillé, Jonquiere-Alma MP Claude Patry called Raoul Gebert, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s chief of staff, to tell him he was crossing the floor.

He didn’t talk with Mulcair, who had wooed the former union leader to run as an NDP candidate and who had campaigned for him. While Patry said he decided last week to make the move, he didn’t take advantage of Wednesday’s caucus meeting to tell colleagues he was leaving.

Patry’s jump to the Bloc Québécois is not the first defection from the eclectic group of NDP MPs from Quebec who suddenly found themselves swept into office on an orange wave in May 2011. However, it risks being more problematic for both the NDP and Mulcair.

Showing off his new recruit at a press conference, Paillé made it clear Thursday that he’s not stopping at Patry. The Bloc is willing to welcome with open arms anyone who wants to stand up for their values without “dishonest compromise,” he told reporters.

Bloc MPs are being tight lipped about whether they are in talks with any other NDP MPs. However, later in the day, as reporters scrummed one NDP MP after another, a Bloc staffer was carefully watching it all.

Patry’s defection promptly sent the NDP into damage control mode as the corridors of Parliament Hill became filled with speculation about who might be the next to leave. Within the hour, the NDP’s Quebec MPs were summoned to a special caucus meeting. Meanwhile, Mulcair spoke to reporters, calling on Patry to quit and run again in a byelection under his new colours.

But despite the bravado and the insistence that it wasn’t the start of a mass exodus, Patry’s departure shines an uncomfortable spotlight on an achilles heel for the NDP.

Before Jack Layton became leader of the NDP, the party garnered fewer votes in many Quebec ridings than the Marijuana Party. While Layton built a base in the province, many of those supporters were wooed away from other parties — particularly soft nationalists who had voted for the Bloc Québécois.

While the Bloc was reduced in the May 2011 election to four seats and lost its leader Gilles Duceppe, many of those elected under the NDP banner had supported sovereignty in the past. Shortly after the election, Bloc insiders said privately that the party knew exactly which NDP MPs used to be Bloc members. They knew it wouldn’t take that many to cross the floor for the Bloc to regain official party status in the House — along with the rights and the budgets that come with it.

The Conservatives appear to have done their homework as well. During Question Period, parliamentary pit bull Pierre Poilievre taunted the NDP with references to other members of its caucus who had donated to sovereignist parties, dubbing the party the NDPQ.

At an event in Rivière du Loup, Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to the “Bloc Orange,” saying NDP MPs with strong links to the sovereignist movement has long been a concern.

The seeds that the Bloc harvested Thursday were sown in October, when Bloc MP André Bellavance tabled a private members bill to repeal the Clarity Act brought in by former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s government in the wake of the 1995 referendum that almost took Quebec out of Canada.

The NDP countered by tabling what it has described as a “Unity Bill.” The bill, tabled by NDP MP Craig Scott, would repeal the Clarity Act but replace it with new language spelling out that Parliament has to be satisfied that a referendum question was clear and that there were no serious irregularities in the vote. If both conditions are met, a vote of 50 per cent plus one could trigger negotiations.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Patry cited the NDP’s positions on the Clarity Act and on Churchill Falls development as the reasons for crossing the floor, saying it left him convinced that the NDP would put Canada’s interests above those of Quebec. For the Bloc, Bellavance’s bill has already grown its caucus to five members and left people wondering how other NDP MPs will vote when the bill goes to a second reading vote expected Tuesday. If NDP MPs from Quebec vote against the bill, it risks providing the Bloc with ammunition for its next electoral battle.

“Mr. Patry is now with the Bloc Québécois,” Paillé told reporters. “It is up to others to pursue their reflections.”

Chances are that Paillé will likely keep doing his best in coming months to give the NDP’s Quebec MPs something to think about.